


if...

by technorat



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Kisses, alterations to timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technorat/pseuds/technorat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are too many if's.<br/>Max could kiss Chloe forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if...

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user flowers-for-asriel ! hope you enjoy ; 0 ;

(1)

She does not use her powers to take back their first kiss.

Chloe accepts the kiss happily, giggling into Max's mouth. Her hands rise to cup Max's hair, softly petting it.

The kiss does not last too long.

It's Max that had initiated; it's Max that ends it.

“Didn't know you had it in ya,” Chloe teases, arms still wrapped around Max's waist. Her face is red. Her arms are warm. Max wants to kiss her again. And again. And again. Until she memorized the softness of Chloe's mouth.

They don't have much longer, not with the storm so steadily approaching.

If only...

 

(2)

Chloe stares at her.

They lay together in her bed. Max had been staring up at the ceiling, ignoring Chloe's heavy gaze. Some obscure band of Chloe's plays on in the background, much too loud for Max's taste, but Chloe loves them; she'll endure. And still Chloe watches, eyes half-closed, a smile spreading slowly on her face.

“What's wrong?” Max asks, furrows furrowing, shifting over on the bed to face Chloe. She frowns; frowning comes all too easily these days.

“Nothing,” says Chloe. Her eyes crinkle with joy, even at such an early hour. Only one of her cheeks is dimpled. She scoots closer, closer, closer, eyes never straying from Max's.

Her throat suddenly feels too dry. _Is Chloe going in for a kiss?_ Max hadn't brushed her teeth yet. Hell, she hadn't even brushed her hair! Chloe looks at her as if Max is the world, filled with possibilities and with hope.

Chloe reaches out, pressing a hand to the back of Max's skull, and brings her close.

She presses her lips to Max's cheek... and blows a big ol' raspberry.

Max freezes, eyes widening, utterly shocked, Chloe's raucous meeting her ears.

“Can't believe you fell for it, Max!” she says, grinning, eyes tearing up, so thoroughly amused by it all. “Damn, you're _so_ gullible!” But Chloe says it with such affection and such warmth, Max can't really take it to heart.

Chloe's hand remains where it was, tangled up in Max's short hair. The space between them grows smaller and smaller until there is none. Chloe kisses her, both eyes open and watching, laughing. Always laughing.

Max wants to preserve this moment in time with a picture.

Her camera is too far away.

Her own memory will have to do.

( _She would never be able to return to this one peaceful moment if everything, everything went wrong. She needs to make things right._

_Chloe deserves to live._

_They all do._ )

 

(3)

_The rain._

_It stung her eyes, hair billowing in the wind._

_Chloe's hair is plastered to her head, inky blues and purples sticking to her pallid face. Her eyes are tinged red, tears blurring her vision. “You have to!” she says, voice cracking with the stress of it all. “You have to go back and let me die!”_

_“No!” Max's voice is just a whisper. A broken whisper. Tears have already escaped her eyes, making their steady way down her frozen cheeks. “No... I-I can't, Chloe... I can't let you die again.” At least, she thinks, the rain will disguise her tears a little._

_Chloe smiles at her, so serene._

_She leans down, kisses Max's cheek, kissing right where the teartracks were. The skull on her shirt is grinning too broadly, mocking them._

_This cannot be why Max got her powers. She couldn't have gotten them for nothing! She had to have gotten them for some reason. Or else... or else this wonderful, hectic week that she had lived over and over and over again would have been for nothing! Reconnecting with Chloe only to lose her without any of those memories made..._

_What would be the point of it all?_

_“I... I can't,” Max whispers, shaking her head. Her nose has begun to bleed, blood dripping down and over her lips._

_And Chloe still smiles, self-assured and ready, as if meeting her end would be a sure thing on that day._

 

(4)

Max takes in a started breath, eyes opening quickly.

“What's wrong?” Chloe asks from her place besides Max. She looks as if she just woke up: hair messy and eyes half-closed. “Bad dream?”

Max scoots closer, wrapping an arm around Chloe. She doesn't say anything. She can't. She can't lose Chloe again; can't let Chloe be okay with being lost.

Chloe accepts the strange semi-hug, wrapping an arm around Max and pulling the other girl on top of her. Chloe's free hand goes to Max's hair, petting her softly. “It'll be okay,” she says, though she doesn't know just quite had happened in Max's dream.

Max shakes her head, tears tumbling down her cheeks and onto Chloe. “It won't.” Her voice is so hoarse, like she hasn't spoken in years.

Chloe watches her, gaze heavy. “You don't know that,” she says softly. Slowly, Chloe kisses her, impossibly gently and impossibly sweet. “You don't know what the future holds. There's so many possibilities, Maximillion.”

Max melts into another kiss.

She does know. She knows much too much.

Chloe holds her close, playing with the dry strands of Max's hair, giving her as much time as Max needed. She might be Super Max, but she cannot be super all the time. All heroes need to take breaks.

Max just needs rest.

She looks so young when asleep.

 

(5)

Sometimes, Max does wonder just what would have happened if she did not move away with her parents so long ago.

What would have happened if she just stayed in touch with Chloe?

What if...

There's too many if's.

She closes her eyes, turns her head, lets the wind caress her cheeks. Her hair flies behind her, away from her face. Max trusts Chloe to drive them wherever. The storm would not come for a while. They still had time. They need to cherish that time.

“What's the plan, Super Max?” Chloe says, not looking away from the road. One hand is resting on the wheel. The other rests on Max's knee. Chloe squeezes Max's knee, as if to reassure her.

A headache builds in Max's mind.

“I don't know,” she says. And it's the truth. She's been through so many timeless, seen so much destruction... saved so many people. And yet it is not enough. The weight of it all is crushing.

“We'll think of something,” says Chloe. “There's always gonna be time.”

Always.

Even an abundance of it for Max.

If only she could give half of it to Chloe.

Arcadia Bay or Chloe, an almost cruel choice.

 

(6)

Twenty years, three days, seven hours, twenty-three minutes, and nine seconds later, Max still wishes the same.

Chloe no longer has blue hair. A light brown. Still soft. Still ridiculously messy in the morning. Chloe sleeps with her mouth open, half on top of Max.

She does not move in this position, still too exhausted. Max still feels as if the weights of those many timelines are still holding her down, making her entire body sluggish. At least, she thinks with a soft sort of smile, the choice did not have to be made.

“G' morning,” Chloe says, now awake. She does not roll away. If anything, she cuddles closer.

The sunshine has filtered in through their shitty, cheap blinds. The sounds of cars come in through the slightly open window along with a breeze. Their downstairs neighbor is playing shitty opera music loudly again. Their upstairs neighbors are vacuuming.

It cannot be more perfect.

“Is Hollywood everything you thought it would be?” Max asks. They had only just recently moved to this apartment but they had left sleepy little Arcadia Bay behind a longer time ago. Chloe's mother had cried but wished them the best when they first went on their journey. It is much... noisier than their old apartments in other scattered cities. The rent is high too.

“Yeah,” says Chloe. Her smile is lop-sided. “You feeling okay?”

Max smiles, weak. Today is one of her more exhaustion-filled days. “I'll be fine,” she says. She needs to get up soon, to get ready for her next photography project at her studio. She just wants to sleep all day. “Make me coffee?”

Chloe kisses her lips, so soft, so gentle; the years have smoothed Chloe's rough edges. They are so gentle with one another. “Too much milk and sugar as usual, yeah?”

Max laughs. Chloe knows her so well.

They are alive.

They have an abundance of time, together this timeline.

What more could they ask for?

 


End file.
